Where Do You Start with Art? Part 1

 A collection of ethnic textiles might be where you start.

One of the creative skills I will be taking my Southwest School of Art class through is that of making a study as a way to develop ideas and images for a series of art quilts. As we work though these ideas (the course meets weekly on Mondays from February 4- March 25) we'll be building a stash of ideas and information focused on one theme or topic. This is often the way I work on a piece of art for a submission when the theme is one that I am considering for the first time.

These notes were written by my Missing Alphabet colleague Dr. Cynthia Herbert, and were originally developed for our teacher training program in Dallas for our afterschool program (part of Big Thought). I've adapted them for artists, with her permission, and will share them here in a series of posts his week.

DOING A STUDY

A STUDY is a sustained investigation of a single concept, thing, theme or idea. In a study, a child explores many, many different viewpoint, contexts and materials. The Sensory Alphabet is used as nine “lenses” through which to view the object of the study. After many explorations, the child expresses a personal definition or viewpoint through one or more original forms.

BRAIN RESEARCH SAYS:

Current brain research and cognitive psychology tells us that human beings can only learn very low-level tasks and ideas through drill and rote memorization. For learning to be faster, longer lasting and of a higher order, each of us must “construct” our own personally meaningful definitions. Although we will all have common notions, the depth and variety of our experiences will determine the depth and dimensionality of our understanding.

For any one of us to be able to use a concept to solve problems, make decisions, express ourselves, and enrich our quality of life, we need a well-elaborated mental representation—a concept that looks very like a complex spider web of interconnected experiences and ideas. The STUDY makes the development and elaboration of mental representations an overt process that leads to “deep understanding” and “transference,” what has been called the “so what?” of learning. This is a valuable way to start an art project or any project that needs more than superficial responses.  

FORMAT: A study is divided into three parts: Priming, Invention and Reflection. Today, I'll list the kinds of activities that are part of priming. Some of these are more appropriate than others for the kind of thinking that art-making is about, but since we do all of these with kids in our classes, I'm listing them all!

PRIMING: Priming activities are intended to prepare each mind to be ready to construct (create)  his or her own definition of the subject being studied. Here are the first two ways to PRIME the mind (more coming next post).

Connect.

Connect the subject with your former experiences, current feelings or opinions and curiosity. Write, journal or search through your collections, stash and memories to make a connection to the theme. IF you can't find a connection, this may not be a good topic for your art -- but most of us, give our lovely capacity for experience, have many connections to much of the world!

Observe and Collect.

Make direct observations and collections in regard to the subject. Focus observations using the Sensory Alphabet and physical "lookers"  to make notes or drawings. Sometimes new ideas for note taking are employed. Take photos, videos or recordings to project/replay and share and use all your senses.

Paying Attention

The just-past post covered a lot of territory. As I take on this new expanded adventure of art out into the world, it's a good idea to think about my story, and what I bring to the table. (Perhaps you should do so, too! Post a link in the comments to your blog about your creative path and we'll see where this takes us...)

Where does my story as an artist begin? With paying attention.

Paying attention, this skill, like any other, needs focus, practice and to be honored within the environment (culture) of its practice. Fortunately from my childhood, I had mentors, parents and teachers who gave me that skill and fostered it's development.

First, a family who loved nature and beauty: Birdwatching was the usual activity on any trip; a geology pick was always in the back seat; composition books for note-taking are STILL a Christmas stocking standard. We looked at plants and creeks on Sunday afternoon drives as we searched for farmland (soon thereafter purchased with the GI Bill). My chemist father shared his love of observation and my intellegent stay-at-home mom nurtured beauty in the everyday life; both of them honored the skill of paying attention and modeled it to us four.

The concepts in The Missing Alphabet speak to my second set of lessons in paying attention. When 12, I was enrolled in a Children's Theatre at Baylor University, part of the department of drama headed by legendary regional director Paul Baker (he also headed the Dallas Theatre and worked with Frank Lloyd Wright on the design of that forward-thinking structure on Turtle Creek). His wife Kitty, and the young woman who became my mentor for decades, Jearnine Wagner, had started a children's program based on the same principles and ideas that were at the heart of the college drama program. These were: that each of us is creative and has a unique story to tell in our art and that all art/perception and creative thinking can be discerned through a vocabulary of form: line, color, shape, movement, light, rhythm, space, sound and texture. These perceptual/sensory tools could be harnessed by the artist (no matter his or her genre or field) as tools for telling that unique story. These, called by Baker "the elements of form," have moved into our missing alphabet book as "the sensory alphabet," a change of language that helps us explain to parents and educators that these are not just "art" words.

I've been able to take these perceptual and creative tools into my life in so many ways, I use them daily as "screens" for my thinking and inventing and imagination. They are the tools that I teach to the participants in many of my workshops, retreats and courses. I find them invaluable in defining and critiquing, in helping other artists find their own strong suits, their own voices and their best ways of working, simply by asking them to pay attention to these perceptual elements in their lives and work. The Missing Alphabet, while its a book targeted at parents, is still a useful resource for emerging artists who would like some specific information about the sensory alphabet, as well as lots of activity ideas that have no expriration date according to age!

Art school introduced me to another set of tools for paying attention, principally, that of drawing. I am not a natural "drawer." In fact, as a young woman (and even in art school) I pretty much decided I could never be a "real' artist because my drawings in junior high and high school never measured up to the cpaturing of reality that I expected as artist should be able to achieve. And though my college drawing classes at Trinity University were dully attended, I still never really fell in love with drawing until much later -- like a couple of years ago.

Paired with the sensory alphabet, some simple ways to approach the blank page have helped  me to get over my fear of drawing and to actually treasure the time I can carve out to pay attention through drawing.* I have a new group of "drawing" mentors, in real life, my friend and artist Sarah Jones, in the digital and print world, the work and writing of John Berger . 

That's why I am looking forward to the next Fearless Sketching workshop here at El Cielo. It's scheduled for April 12-14, costs $180. There is still room for a couple more participants, so if you are interested, send me a note through the comments or on the contact form on the sidebar to the right.